Electricity

We will not have electricity at the house or at least for the first few months. This is not as big of an issue here as it might be in the US.  Here, people mostly use electricity for lights, TV, music and charging their phones. We do not have washers, dryers, dishwashers or heaters. I lived without electricity for two years during my Peace Corps service and it was actually very relaxing. It gets dark at 7 pm every night (we are on the equator), so I would use a kerosene lantern and a head lamp for light. I would make dinner on a propane tank that has a burner. Then after dinner, I would read and go to bed and I would wake up with the sun in the morning. Pretty relaxing!

The biggest challenge is keeping your cell phone charged; most people without electricity take their phones to town and pay about 10 cents to have them charged at a charging station.  My issue is that town is about 6 km (3.75 miles) away and I won’t have a car. So I will have to walk and hope that a matatu comes by that will pick me up along the way.  Because of this issue, I will likely have some backup battery sources that either utilizes a car battery with an inverter or solar power. At this point, we are still doing some research on the solar power.